Folklore is rich with stories of ghosts, goblins and guff, and researchers should always search for their origins, as far as possible. It was during my investigations into ‘The Ruskington Horror’1 (see FT401:32-38, 402:38-43) and other road ghosts from around old Lincolnshire that I came across a couple of longstanding stories that appear to show how actual events – albeit unusual ones – might, over time, become part of local supernatural folklore.
TWO GHOSTLY CHILDREN
The first followed my ‘call’ for witnesses of the Scotter Road Spectre () in the . Among the responses was a particularly intriguing one about the ghosts of two children. Fifty-four-year-old Mrs R stated that she had lived all her life on Lodge Road, Scunthorpe, which is in the area immediately north-west of the Frodingham Viaduct on Scotter Road. As a child she used to play on and near the viaduct, and in the adjoining fields and woods. She was always told of sightings of not one but two children who had died after being poisoned by their father. She understood that they had lived in an old house that used to be beside the viaduct opposite the Brumby Wood Lane junction. She didn’t know how true this was and suspected that the story might have been a scare tactic employed by parents to stop kids going near the ruins of the house. She still walks her dogs through the area and finds that at
